1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to telecommunications systems, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for implementing interactive call identification to facilitate caller identification.
2. Related Background Art
Prior to picking up the handset on a ringing telephone, thereby accepting an incoming call, it is increasingly desirable for a call recipient to have access to certain information about that incoming call prior to accepting the call. Having access to this information will aid the call recipient in screening the incoming call to decide whether or not to accept it.
Various call identification methods are currently available which provide selected information to the call recipient regarding the incoming call to aid him or her in identifying that incoming call.
These known call identification methods include features to display call information to the call recipient by sending and displaying a data message to the called station. These methods however, are inherently limited in the scope of information they are capable of conveying to the screening call recipient.
The call information (i.e., the data message) provided in the se known call identification methods consists of, or at best is derived from, the phone number of the station from which the caller is placing the call, providing little more information than the calling station number to the called party. The nature or purpose (i.e., subject matter) of the call or any other information, is left to be discovered by the called party only after accepting the call.
These known methods typically identify the number of the station from which the calling party is placing the call from a unique code associated with that station from which the call is placed. Where the subscribing call recipient has installed the necessary hardware (i.e., digital display of some type or an ISDN station), the station number from where the calling party is placing the call will be displayed. Where the call recipient has a conventional analog station, these identification services are unavailable without additional equipment. Further, the calling number will be available to the called party only where the calling party has not blocked the information.
Since a called party will typically only have a few of the more frequently used numbers committed to memory, a method of merely displaying the calling station number is of limited utility.
Related methods will also display the caller's name, derived from the calling station number, or other limited data messages. While these methods are potentially more helpful to the call recipient in deciding whether to take a call, they still suffers from the inherent limitation that any information provided to the called party is by necessity tied to the phone station from which the call is placed.
A call-announcement method is also available for call identification.
In the call announcement scheme, a text-to-speech converter generates speech signals from text retrieved from a database, for transmission to the called station. The database contains information associated with the calling party's number, specifically, the calling party's name. After answering the call, a subscribing call recipient will receive synthesized, spoken information consisting of the calling party's name and/or number. This service is made available to customers having conventional analog or ISDN equipment.
A related development in call identification is that the call recipient who subscribes to the call announcement service can also make a personalized list, resident in the subscribing party's station equipment or central office, where the phone number of frequent callers is correlated to an identifying message, either recorded voice or text, entered by the subscriber. However, the calling party must have an entry in the called party's database corresponding to the number from which the calling party is calling in order for their call to be meaningfully announced to the called party. Where there is no corresponding entry on the list, an incoming call may remain unidentified or may be misidentified.
Also, as is common to the previously mentioned call identification methods, where a known and welcome caller is calling from someone else's phone or is identified as an `unlisted caller` because he is calling from an unknown (such as a payphone) or blocked number, a call from an otherwise welcome caller may go unanswered due to the lack of or improper identification.
As has been illustrated, an inherent limitation in these known methods is that identification of a calling party is constricted to the station from which the call is being placed, providing little, if any, information beyond the calling station number. This is of limited value if someone with whom the recipient wishes to speak is calling from an unfamiliar telephone. With the known call identification methods, the call recipient would in this case see an unfamiliar telephone number as identifying the incoming call and have no further information upon which to decide whether or not the call should be accepted. Even the slightly more sophisticated call-announcement method gives little more pre-answer information to the call recipient as it is still tied to the station number from which the incoming call is placed and any possible messages to be retrieved can, practically speaking, only be generic in nature (i.e., "This is Bob.")
In any event, the nature or subject of the call will remain unknown to the recipient until he or she actually takes the incoming call.
Thus, to illustrate, with the known methods, calling party `A` cannot be properly identified to the called party as `A` unless `A` is placing the call from a phone or station having a directory number associated with `A`. If `A` places the call from a station assigned to party `B`, party `A` will be mis-identified to the call recipient as party `B`.
Other known messaging methods which allow a caller to send a voice message to a called party are restricted by other limitations. Although providing capabilities of custom message recording, a separate call is required during which the message is created. The message is then delivered at a scheduled delivery time to a recipient party.
As is evident from the foregoing, limitations in known methods limit the effectiveness, and therefore the utility, of the current level of advancement achieved in the area of call identification.